Effects of Acetylsalicylic Acid and Salicylic Acid on the Growth of HeLa Cervical Cancer Cells Line

Introduction: Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer affecting women in the world, 527,000 new cases were reported and over 250,000 deaths were reported each year. The major risk factor of cervical cancer is infection with HPV. The aim of our research is to determine the effect of Aspirin (Acetylsalicylic Acid) and Salicylic Acid on cervical cancer cells in vitro using HeLa cervical cancer cells line, also to determine the mechanism by which these drugs can kill cervical cancer cells through apoptosis, also to find the possibility of using ASA and SA as cervical cancer drugs.

Materials and Methods: Cell viability was determined using cell titre blue from 1,000,000 to 31,250 cells per ml on HeLa. Dose response for the drugs was carried out at concentrations from 0-20 mM incubated at time intervals 24, 48 and 72 hrs incubation. A 10 mM concentration of ASA and SA were used to determine the caspase activity using caspaseglo for the period of 0-24 hrs incubations. Western blot was carried out using active anti- caspase3 antibody for caspase3 proteins.

Results and Conclusion: The cell viability shows the absorbance increases as the number of cells increases. There is effectiveness of viability inhibition from 15 mM to 20 mM concentration for 24, 48 and 72 hrs incubation on dose response. There is much higher increase in caspase activities from 8 hrs to 16 hrs on both drugs, with much more effect with SA than ASA. Western blot shows no expression of protein for caspase3, but shows expression using β actin as a housekeeping gene. ASA and SA can induce apoptosis and bring about cell death on cervical cancer; therefore these drugs can be good drugs for the treatment of cervical cancer.